Moving On...Need Advice form LA Dopers

September has been a real crap month. On September 9th I lost my job, on the 11th my father died and then this week I got trapped in Rita traffic.
I’m a walking nerve and thisclose to total burnout. So I’m going to chuck it all and move to LA.

How’s the job market there? What can I expect to pay for a small apartment? How about car insurance?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I’m not ready to move on with my life but it looks like I’ve got to bite the bullet and go.

I’m 2 hours east of LA in the desert, and things are booming. Lots of jobs (not sure what type of work you do) and housing probably more in line price-wise than in LA or Orange counties. Cons - no beach, HOT summers, cultural life is limited.
Pros - wearing shorts all year round, beautiful hiking/golfing/swimming/biking/off roading, very little traffic, casinos.

Whenever you get here, let me know - we’ll have a DopeFest in your honor!

Any excuse for a Dopefest!

As for the OP, we need more info. Prices vary wildly depending on where you want to live. Santa Monica prices aren’t Long Beach prices aren’t Valley prices.

The job market for what? The service and retail industry is well supplied by would-be actors/actresses, screenwriters, and directors in addition to the usual suspects (teenagers, college students, slackers of various flavors), although as with all service jobs the door is a revolving one. There are few industrial jobs and virtually no manufacturing sector other than small cottage industries. From what I’ve seen, there’s the usual spread of white-collar jobs, from copy peons to senior management.

You can expect to pay $1000+ for a small one bedroom apartment in the decent parts of LA and surrounding areas; somewhat cheaper up in “the Valley” (which is a generic suburban sprawl) or in less favored areas (Compton, El Monte, et cetera), but you really don’t want to live there. Popular neighborhoods are in North Hollywood (expensive), Silver Lake (moderately expensive, near Dodgers Stadium), Los Feliz (getting pricey), Santa Monica (varies, but there’s little rental property left after the abortive attempt at rent control). There’s more suburban-type area south and east of downtown–Anaheim, Norwalk, et cetera–but I don’t know how much rental stuff there is or how the costs run there. I live in Pasadena, which is a bit removed from LA/Hollywood but is on the Gold Line (light rail); prices are still high but there’s more space; South Pas and and Glendale are cheaper, but hardly cheap. (One thing that might suprise you if you think of LA being an “urban sprawl” is how squeezed housing is in the LA area proper, owing to the semi-mountainous geography.) Very few people live in the downtown area proper, and for such a large urban center downtown hardly qualifies as a cultural center; stuff is kind of spread out. As you get to know people you can probably find cheaper housing, but getting to know people is kind of tough, IME.

Car insurance is high; moving here from Milwaukee’s East Side with a good driving record (just a couple of speeding tickets in the last few years) my rates effectively doubled, even after shopping around. Gas is also at the top end of national prices; right now we’re running about steadily $3.00/gallon. Traffic isn’t as bad as some might have you believe–obviously, anyone complaining about LA traffic hasn’t been on the New Jersey Turnpike–but it is thick. Public transit is limited (see www.mta.net); there’s a light rail system that radiates in North-South (Hollywood to Long Beach) and East-West (Sierra Madre to LAX and Norwalk) to spokes from downtown Union Station, but no sidelines, and a heavier MetroRail that runs out to eastern suburbs (Riverside, San Bernardino). The rest is buses with all that entails, so if you plan to use trains consider your proximity to the nearest station. Taxis are common in some areas but pricey; transit via bike is risky (few bike lanes and a lot of aggressive drivers).

It’s a big area, and no doubt with some persistance you can find a neighborhood you like, a residence to suit you, and a job you can tolerate, but here’s the $64,000 question: why Los Angeles in particular? It seems to be a mecca for people to migrate too (and you’ll find that the majority of people you run into, especially in the more trendy areas, are non-natives) but except for the admittedly excellent Mediterranian climate, and entertainment industry and attendent festivities it’s not superior in most ways to any other large city. Personally, if I were going West without a particular goal in mind I’d be inclined more to San Francisco, Seattle, or Portland. (I don’t really know San Diego so I can’t speak to it but it does seem that the job market is tighter down there.)

Stranger

Whassamatter, Stranger? You too good to come to a welcoming Dopefest? Get with the program, man! :smiley:

My college roomie lives there and has invited me to her place while I get back on my feet.

Thanks to everyone for the advice so far. Sorry if I was vague about the job question: I’m a Jane of All Trades so I don’t have any preference. I’ve been in retail, phone sales, food service, cruise line work, bookstores, management…the list goes on.

$1000 for a small place? Looks like I’ll be on her couch for a while. I’m paying $375+ utilities right now for a 2/1 mobile home. And my car insurance is only $92/month. I own the car so I’ve only got 20/40/15, the TX minimum.

Sigh. I wish I could think clearly or make decisions right now but I’m too emotionally exhausted. I want my mommy.

Dopefest sounds great! I’d love to meet you guys in person.

Here’s an earlier thread that goes through some of the areas to live in. Here’s another. And one more. I’m a native Californian, although I’ve lived a good portion of my life elsewhere; but the last bit has been here in LA. I like LA, but it isn’t for everyone. Hence, my question: Why LA? Why not, say, Seattle, or Chicago, or the Bay Area? LA isn’t the easiest town to move to; people are a bit hard to get to know and tend to be friendly but, um, somewhat shallow. I’ve heard from a lot of people that moving here to LA is kind of lonely, particularly if you don’t have a built-in support system. (We have had a couple people who’ve moved out, done a year – just long enough to study for and pass the bar – then moved back to wherever they were from, because they were lonely.)

As for cost of living, costs are higher here in LA than in Texas, plus there is a state income tax. So you’ll be paying the same or more than what you paid in Texas, plus have income tax on top of that. So figure you’ll need to make 10-20% more than what you make now to maintain your standard of living. That won’t be enough to buy a house (house prices are nutty right now).

What do you do? Or, what do you want to do when you come out here? The job market is actually pretty good right now, although better in some sectors than others.

Email me if you’d like; and if you do move out here, I’m happy to meet you for coffee, lunch, whatever to ease the newcomer pangs.

Preview is my friend. I swear, none of those responses were there when I started typing!

Take a look at craigslist or Westside rentals for apartments. $375/month is low, but with a roommate, you could swing a pretty decent place for about $500-700 each. What area does your college roomie live in?

Yeah, as you can see from the previous posts, L.A. is impossible to summarize in a neat package. What any given person tells you depends on their personal experience, and no body can experience every thing or place in L.A. I learned this after driving an L.A. Taxi for two years.

You really have to check it out for yourself, to see what’s right for you. Take your roommate up on her offer, and spend some time to get around. Public transportation is, alas, nothing like New York or San Francisco, because those places aren’t so spread out. I spent a period of three or four years once and hardly ever drove (mostly just to move the car for street sweeping). That’s because I chose a neighborhood that was close to important bus/subway lines that went where I knew I’d be going.

I’ve lived on the Westside, South Central, Glendale and Hollywood. You don’t have to spend $1,000 for an apartment, unless you insist upon living in a trendy Westside neighborhood.

If price is an issue might I reccomend Fresno, CA. Prices have been creeping up here lately but there are still nice neighborhoods where you can get a 2BR for around $500-$600. I am in a very nice area and pay $975 for a 1300sqft 3BR/2BA w/2 car garage.

Job markets here are ok, alot of the unemployment we are famous for is due to seasonal ag related businesses. Plenty of heavy industry has been creeping in and due to the relatively central location in the state many major corporate distribution centers for CA are here (Gap has a huge facility here).

Not a cultural mecca but it has been getting better. Can see 110+ in the summer but its dry…nothing you havent seen in TX, rarely below freezing, might get a few little bits of snow for a few hours every few years. Traffic has become steadily worse over the years but its still nothing like LA or the SF bay area and wont be anytime in the next 10 years or so. The freeways might slow down to 35-40 for 30 min or so during peak commute but never see the stop and go like the big cities.

any Q’s feel free to email me

You call it, I’ll come.

This is so true; Los Angeles is truely a mirage in terms of experience. On thing is for certain–it ain’t the dramatically filmed Michael Mann neon showplace that you see in the movies. But otherwise, everybody has a unique perspective on it. You might try Peter Theroux’s Translating LA (brother of travelloguer Paul Theroux) for his perspective (as an outsider) on Los Angeles.

That sounds about right; that’ll net you a large 1 bedroom (partition off the living room as the second space) or maybe a smaller 2 bedroom in a fairly safe and accessible area–say Koreatown or Glendale. I pay $1,250 for a 1 bedroom with study (they say 2 bedroom, I say no way) with a fireplace and largish kitchen within walking distance to Old Town Pasadena. It started out at $975 but they’ve kept ratcheting it up every year–at this rate, next year I’m going to have to look for someplace else. House-buying prices are absolutely insane, and housebuilder stocks are taking a dive, so I’m guessing the bottom is going to fall out of that market, so it’s not a good time to buy.

That’s a pretty sweet situation–and a well honored tradition–if you can stretch it for two or three months. If you have the time to poke around you can probably find a cheaper place than what you’ll find in the papers. Check out coffeeshops and local schools for apartment postings. Even better if you can find another or two people to split with; there are a lot of larger apartments that are beyond the means of a single person but are quite cost effective split two or three ways.

Well, you’re definitely in for sticker shock there, and you’re going to want to carry more than that in this BMW-infested and litigious area; one coworker t-boned an Porsche Cayanne that cost more than her annual salary. (Sorry, Campion; I won’t toss out any lawyer jokes.)

I don’t mean to be too down on it; I actually rather like Los Angeles–there’s a heck of a lot to do here, both outdoors and about town, but many come with the attitude that it’s going to fix all of what is wrong with life; and then they discover that “It’s just Chinatown.” (Film reference…if you haven’t seen it then it won’t make any sense to you.)

Anyway, whatever you do, good luck to you.

We spend all of our lives trying to get back to that haven of comfort and security, non? And I’m sorry to hear about the loss of your father; it’s certainly been a rough couple of months for you. Hang in there, and if you have more questions–or there’s any way we can help–let us know.

Stranger

LA is not for everyone… hear, hear! As said by others, it’s a big place, and bound to be a different experience for most everyone. There’s lots of different types of living arrangements possible here, so it’s hard to say exactly what you could wind up with. Yes, there are trailer parks spread throughout SoCal, if that’s for you.

Me, I get pretty tired of all the traffic and smog, but I don’t have to leave town for very long before I realize that it’s probably got the same number of faults as anywhere else, and in some obscure way, it’s the place I consider home.

Welcome.

Like around Belflower and Artesia. But it’s like the moon, down there. You never see any people never the trailers.

This will narrow it down: Roomie is near the HWY 405 & HWY 10 intersection. Another friend in Huntington Beach.

Just so you know – we refer to them as The 405 and The 10. (And sometimes we even drop the definite article.)

(I’m just trying to help you fit in, once you get here…)

Well, it will narrow it down only if you want to live near Roomie. You don’t necessarily have to. Consider where you might work, and what kind of neighborhood you like. I don’t know about Roomie, but a lot of people on the west side never leave it, and have no idea about the rest of the city. OTOH, if Roomie is someone you’d like to spend time with, you don’t want to have to drive all the way across town or take a lot of buses.

I’ve lived on the west side for nearly 16 years. It costs more, but offers many advantages. [ul]
[li]Near the beach[/li][li]Two significant art museums, practically in your back yard (Hammer and Getty)[/li][li]UCLA, with its enormous library and cultural events, ditto[/li][li]Numerous cafes, restaurants, and other amenities in easy reach.[/li][li]If you live close enough to the West L.A. Civic Center, you’ll experience a small-town ambience and find that you can actually walk to many places, and take the bus to many more. [/li][/ul]

Westside cons (to be fair)[ul]
[li]Traffic is terrible, but the political wind is shifting toward eventually extending the subway out here.[/li][li]Expensive rents[/li][li]House prices completely out of sight, unless you’re a successful surgeon, law partner, actor, executive, etc.[/li][/ul]

Incidentally you may find that older people still speak of "The San Diego Freeway (I-405) or “The Santa Monica Freeway” (I-10) but that’s pretty rare these days.